Hydra
by Lucilla Darkate
Summary: PyroRogue It was ironic, really, how fire of his own making had been the cause of John’s mutilation.


He lay face up, strapped down to the examination table with needles and tubes sticking out of him. Rogue hardly recognized him at all, laying there, still and silent in the faint, white false light. She didn't think she'd ever seen scars like St. John's. Certainly, she'd never seen any quite as bad.

The symbols Kurt carved into his skin were nothing to this. They were mysterious and almost pretty, and she had never known him without them, so they were a part of him rather than a disfigurement.

But this…this was wrong.

It was ironic, really, how fire of his own making had been the cause of John's mutilation.

"Are you going to just stand there and stare?" John asked softly, without turning his head to look at her. She suspected this was because it hurt him to do so more than because he did not want to. "Tell me, Marie…don't you think I'm pretty?"

Rogue swallowed and moved to stand beside his prostrate form so she could look at him closer up. She _forced_ herself to look. To look and see him as he was, right now, and not try to dim the horror of it by remembering him as he had once been.

"You were," she said, "once," and she was not talking about the scars.

"They should have left me…" he said. "They should have…"

"Let you die?" Rogue asked. "You know they couldn't do that."

"Maybe I wanted them to," John snapped. "Maybe they didn't fucking ask me what _I _wanted."

Rogue was quiet for a moment, studying the boy she knew beneath all the wounds. He was still there…and yet he wasn't. "Maybe it's not about you," she whispered. "They didn't save you _for_ you."

John made a chuffing sound of amusement and turned his head on the table to meet her eyes. "Touch me." It was said like a command because St. John would never beg anyone for anything. It was not in his nature. But it was begging just the same, and she knew it.

Rogue tucked her hands under her arms and hugged herself. "No."

"Touch me," he insisted.

Rogue let out a trembling breath and dropped her gaze to the floor at her feet. "No. If you…If you want to kill yourself, I'm not going let you use me to do it."

"If I wanted to kill myself, don't you think there are easier ways?" he asked. "Look at me."

Rogue did. When she didn't flinch away, his lips parted in a ghastly smile. "I want you to feel…My mutation…It's gone."

Rogue stared at him, unblinking, for a long while, but he was telling the truth. Or else, he _believed_ that he was. "That's impossible."

"Is it? After what your frosty little boyfriend did to me…" John trailed off.

"He didn't… You… He had _no choice."_ Rogue said.

"That's not the point," John said. "I can't even keep a match flame from burning my fingertip. I can't…I _can't._ They let me try and_…nothing."_

"You're just in shock or something," Rogue said. "It'll come back."

"'It'll come back,'" John mimicked. "It doesn't just come back or _not come back._"

"Then you'll…You'll live with it," Rogue said. "Maybe you—"

"Deserve it?" John finished for her.

Rogue let one of her hands rest on the table beside him. She wanted to be able to comfort him. He was a nasty, murderous, traitorous bastard, but he was also John Allerdyce. John, with his quick wit and sharp tongue. John who had been Bobby's friend, and hers, not so long ago. But her touch had never been comforting, not to anyone, and even if comfort was not what he wanted, it was all that she was willing to give.

"I'm sorry, John," she said.

John narrowed his eyes on her face and she watched one of the thin, silvery scars on one of his eyelids move. Revolted and sad, she looked away.

And when she did, John twisted his hand around inside his restraint and seized her fingertips.

The moment he touched her, she tried to jerk away, but it was too late. Her skin came alive against his and he knew in a moment that she _had not_ taken the Cure as he'd believed. And she knew that he had lost _nothing_, that his power was still there, underneath all the drugs being pumped into him through the IV tubes, and that he had panicked for no reason.

"_I don't want your fucking pity_," John said, and Rogue couldn't tell if he had actually spoken the words or not because he was _inside_ her head, in her blood, and _burning_.

She screamed, still trying to get away from him, but he'd gotten a better hold on her and he _would not let go_.

"Let…go," she hissed between her teeth. She could feel his heart beat like it was her own, speeding up, then faltering, his mind, his restless _personality_, right there inside her head with her own, fighting for dominance. "_Let go!"_

But there was a part of her, a very deep, secret part of her that did not want him to. Even as the rest of her recoiled at the idea, there was a part of her that enjoyed the sensation of his mind mating with hers. And that part of her mind _knew_ St. John. Knew him and liked what he was doing just fine, because she'd been inside him once before and she'd never really come all the way back. And doing a thing once…well, it's almost always easier to do it the second time.

"John…please let go," Rogue said. It was a whispered plea, and there was no hope in it at all once the words were spoken. She could feel his heart like it was in her own chest, and she knew when it stopped beating.

She slumped to the floor, still clutching his hand, though his now lay limply in her grasp and she could have let it go if she'd wanted. She closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath, fighting back tears and the voices clamoring together inside her mind…John's now among them.

When she thought she had it under control, she got up and left the room. She should probably tell someone what had happened…

But first, she needed to find her lighter.


End file.
